A Few Things Straighter
by Gunney
Summary: Jack and Carter are sent on a mission to a planet that is more than it seems. Revised.
1. The Beginning

"Carter."

"Sir?"

"I have officially had enough of this."

Carter smiled briefly. Her hand still resting over the Colonel's forehead. It was shaking but not from the near arctic wind, or from the fear she had been feeling, nagging at her every fiber. But from laughter. Barely concealed, barely held back laughter.

"Me too, sir."

Jack's head bobbed once or twice under her hand before his eyes closed and he lost conciousness again.

Happy moment over, the silence starting to get to her again, Carter let her head droop and come to rest on her CO's collarbone.

"God." She sighed and all was soon black.

* * *

"Colonel!"

"Major?"

"You're here sir."

"Congratulations."

"I thought you were on vacation, sir."

Jack paused for a moment, looking down purposefully at the full BDU's, P-90 and utility vest he wore before looking back to his 2IC.

"Yes, Carter. Vacation."

Sam smiled and shook her head, catching a glimpse of the telltale smirk before O'Neill turned to take the last few steps into the gateroom. She followed to see the last of the MALP dissappear through the event horizon.

"Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter. You have twenty-four hours to retrieve the samples of soil from P58C29, good luck."

"Thank you, General. Will do." Jack smirked as he righted his sun glasses and squinted pointlessly at the gate. The two walked together through the shimmering pool and came out much the same way on the other side.

P58C29

O'Neill took a few coursory glances of the planet before he let the nose of the P-90 drop.

"Nice place." He commented as he stepped towards the MALP looking it over carefully for an damage.

"From the UAV scans sir, I'd be willing to retire here."

"Yes, Carter. But there are trees here."

Sam smiled slightly, stepping up to the MALP and opening several compartments. Grabbing several gages and monitors and a case of test tubes.

"Other than that, sir." She oblidged and started towards the nearest tree.

O'Neill smiled slightly. "You go. Analyze. Enjoy." While I die of boredom. He scanned the area around the gate once more then headed towards what looked like a body of water, no more than fifty feet from the gate.

Carter caught the last of it and grinned to herself, sending one quick glance over her shoulder, watching the handsome Colonel give the classic 'this is going to be boring and I'm not gonna like it' look then start to wander off. She took a deep breath.

Why he was even here she didn't know but she could guess. Carter could imagine the Colonel's vacation ending shortly after he decided he was bored and missed the SGC, the constant danger, the thrill of leaving Terra Firma for other worlds, other galaxies. From the frying pan into the fire, but who was she to judge. Besides, it offered a great view.

She worked with that? God!

Then she turned her attention to the soil, flipped on the tape recorder and cleared her throat.

"First analyses of soil on P58C29, taken from the base of native vegetation labeled C29-1."

* * *

First analyses of lake on P58C-something-something. Boring. Nothing. Not even a ripple. But the view was good.

Jack smiled at the peaceful lake. The uneven inlet time had created, the gentle roll of cliffs in the distance, the afternoon sun . . . well seeing as how it was an alien planet it wouldn't exactly be afternoon, but it seemed that way. And the sun was getting ready to set beautifully, casting a warm glaze over the place. Peaceful, just right for fishing. Especially the part about there being absolutely no fish in the lake.

Moving from the sandy spot he had stopped on, and heading parallel to the setting sun Jack's thoughts wandered aimlessly. Taking in the numerous trees, though he steered far clear of them. The weird, but attractive bluish plants, with their solid white blossoms.

A bush or three tucked into a knoll looked suspiciously like raspberries. Up there on the swiftly climbing slope there was a rustle of brush that indicated some sort of rodent maybe. He made a face and looked to the other side of what was swiftly becoming a path up a mountain. The landscape dropping away a mess of brush, thistles and rocks that looked ready to create a nuisance at any opportunity.

Yet the path was here, and apparently well used. Obviously the natives weren't concerned with rock slides or erosion on any mass scale.

Up ahead, several hundred feet onward, the Colonel found himself on the flat of the first 'cliff' in the long line that circled around the lake. To his surprise he wasn't alone.

Three figures, wearing robes, or perhaps made of robes themselves hung in a most unhealthy fashion from a thick pole standing erectly in the air. The feet were even with Jack's head.

"Carter?"

"Sir?" Her tinny voice responded over the radio.

"What did you say the natives looked like?"

There was a long pause.

"Um, sir. Neither the UAV or the MALP found any traces of native life other than small rodents and plant . . . sir."

"That's what I thought." He muttered as he slowly reached up to touch the ankle, or what would have been an ankle, if it didn't squish so much. And to his surprise the body was warm. Or at least warmer than it should have been if it were . . . dead. Long dead. But this was fresh dead. The kind of fresh dead he didn't like. The kind that sent that thrill of adrenaline through his system. "Start dialing home, Carter."

"Sir?"

* * *

What the hell?

Carter looked up, squinting but not seeing the Colonel, or anything that would be reason to dial home for that matter. But she had little choice. She had learned long ago to trust the instincts of a military man. Quickly collecting the samples she had labeled she placed them in their appropriate places in the case and ran to the MALP turning it on and working it towards the Stargate as she headed for the DHD.

* * *

Turning on his heel Jack surveyed the mount once, then headed for the path, the start of which was hidden by a moss-ridden boulder. "Just do it Carter, I'll explain late-"

The ground dropped out from under him and for a second he was flying. Then he landed with a crash, boom, bang, snap and thud.

As the rocks cascaded down after him, pelting him as if in mockery, he let out a sigh. "Ow."

Then all was black.


	2. Finding Col O'Neill

"Sir?" Carter paused the gate wide open, the code sent, the relayed message that the irus was open blinking on her forearm. And no colonel. "Colonel, please respond. Over."

Nothing. Fear, adrenaline, and a million questions were making her chest heavy as she looked to the shimmering event horizon then back to the woods the Colonel had dissappeared into. A decision had to be made.

She knew the Colonel would want her to go through the gate, tell Hammond get reinforcements. The military side of her was in full agreement. But somehow she couldn't leave. Not yet. She went to the MALP and brought up the communication and video feed.

"Major Carter, what's going on?" She heard Hammond's bewilderment from thousands of light years away and sighed.

"I don't know, General, sir. The Colonel sent me a transmission ordering me to open the Stargate, and just prior to that he had made a comment about natives, sir. There are no natives on this planet. To be frank, sir, he sounded spooked."

"So what's the problem?"

"Well . . . he's not here sir. I can't raise him on the radio and he's nowhere in sight."

There was silence from the other side. A good long time, long enough that Carter thought the feed had been lost.

"Sit tight Major, I'm going to send reinforcements through within the hour." And the transmission ended as the stargate snapped off.

Leaning her weight against the MALP the blonde Major nodded and quietly thanked the General. He had seen her delimma. She couldn't leave the planet, not without knowing where Jack was or even _if_ he was...anymore. It would have been direct violation of their moral code, never leaving a man behind. She couldn't do that. And she knew somehow that the General wouldn't have asked her to either.

Slowly she stood straight, taking a deep breath and turning in a complete circle. Scanning the rising hills, the setting sun and the complete quiet. She stood for several minutes simply listening, formulating in her mind when the sound reached her ears.

A soft sound, a plop if you will.

Of something round and hard falling into water.

She started towards the lake, her right hand bringing the radio close to her mouth. "Colonel?" There was no response. Just the continued plopping sound.

Scrambling to the sandy beach closest to the stargate Sam searched the area again. Looking for ripples, or splashes or anything that could explain the sound she was hearing. She found what she was searching for in short order. Far off the shore, illuminated brightly by the setting sun she could see a tiny object fly out from a crag in the mountain's face and land in the water with just as tiny a splash. Then there was nothing. A full thirty seconds went by before three stones were flung from the crag together. Plop-plop-plop.

She frowned, stepping closer. Another thirty seconds and another stone. Plop. Five seconds and a second stone. Plop. Five seconds. Plop.

Another minute passed but it didn't have to. She knew what she would here. Plop-plop-plop. Three stones. Three short sounds. It was SOS.

"I'm on my way, Colonel." She shouted, depressing the send button on the comm, though it occurred to her that he would have called for help if he still had his comm. It didn't occur to her that she shouldn't shout. Much less make all haste and noise in finding her way to the Colonel. After all the planet was uninhabited . . . right?

Running up the path and onto the flat, following the slight depressions made by the Colonel's own journey she kept her eyes open. Searching for any sign of struggle, or a fall perhaps.

"Colonel. If you can hear me give me a sign!"

She waited, her eyes on the ground. Going to one edge, then another, then another looking down the sides of the plateau she for any signs of her CO. When she stopped her movement for a moment she heard the soft sounds of stones falling into the water and allowed herself a smile.

"I'm coming, sir." She called more softly, moving closer and closer to the noise. Moving further across the plataue until she reached the verticle wall of stone that cut off easy access to the next platue. The sound of the stones was coming from directly below that wall. She frowned. Walking to the edge overlooking the lake, bracing one hand against the wall she leaned out and over.

Beyond the wall, close to the surface of the water she saw a small rock sail out wards. A strained but audible voice following it. "C'rter?"

Sam frowned, happy to hear his voice, but how the hell had he gotten down there.

"Sir? Are yo-"

Before she could say any more the ground gave way under her feet with a clang and she started to slide down . . . into the mountain, her rate of decent spitting her out violently into a narrow valley covered with rocks, dirt and vegetation. She literally flew through the air and impacted bodily against the opposite wall before crumbling to the ground unconcious.

Blearily, Jack O'Neill glanced to the square opening his 2IC had flown out of as it reasealed itself without a trace. His eyes traveled over to the Major and he sighed, his breath hitching a bit. "Oops."


	3. Discovering Secrets

"Sixty-six bottles of beer on the wall, sixty-six bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, sixty-...five bottles of beer on the wall..."

There was a pause and Carter blinked one eye open.

"Sixty-five bottles of beer on the wall, sixty-five bottles of beer, take one down pass it around sixty-four bottles of beer on the wall..."

Another pause. Pain started to envelope her as other parts of her body awoke. Her first true thoughts were that it hurt and she didn't want to know why, nor where the voice was coming from. She wanted to sleep. Her once active brain started to comply...her eyes started to close...

"Sixty-four bottles of beer on the wall, sixty-four bottles of bee-eer...ah...ow. Take one down, pass it around...sixty-three bottles of beer on the wall."

It was back. The voice. She groaned. Why? Why couldn't the fool responsible for the noise shut up so that she could get some sleep. Couldn't he see she wasn't feeling well? And then there was that annoying sound of stones rolling around, and falling on occasion. And the wind, when had that happened? Did the wind just normally pick up like that in her apartment?

She sighed and shook her head ever so slightly. She would shut the window later. Right now she needed...to get...some more...

"Sixty-three bottles of beer on the wall, sixty-three bottles of beer, take one down, pass it...around...sixty-something bottles of beer on the wall."

"Would you just shutup!"

Jack's head snapped up, the mumble catching him a bit surprised, but he was just as happy as if it hadn't. His voice was raw from shouting and singing and cracked a bit with the question. "You awake over there, Carter?"

Sam blinked a couple of times, the voice in her head and the voice to her left vying for attention. "Huh?" She lay for a couple of seconds, blinking at the green, blue, brown thing in front of her until it came into focus. Ah, a plant. Nice. Shifting her focus to the side she made out more of those plant-things. And some rocks. The type that would make a plopping sound of they were thrown into...lake. SOS. The Colonel.

"Colonel!" She pushed herself up to her knees and grabbed hold of the nearest rock as the whole valley spun violently. Not valley, more like a trench she thought. Her eyes eventually focused and she got a better look. Or atleast as good a look as she could get in the semi-darkness.

"Colonel? Where are you?"

"Right in front of you, head towards the light."

"What light, sir?"

The Colonel groaned as softly as he could, yanking again at the stubborn flashlight caught between the ground and his right side. Three or four tugs and it finally gave, nearly flying out his grip. Once he had a solid hold on it he flipped it on and flashed it around the trench he was lying in. It took little time to find Carter, and she looked no better than she had the last time he'd been able to see her.

The bright light in her eyes was like a hot poker in her brain, and having just found her feet she was loathe to loose her balance or anything else for that matter. She made a painfilled noise and covered her eyes leaning against the nearest wall until the pain had passed.

"Sorry, 'bout that."

"No problem sir." She answered softly. "Does it look bad?"

Setting the light down, the beam perpendicular to the ground, Jack took a deep breath. "Well, you won't make Miss America that's for sure."

Sam's face broke into a smile, her body still turned into the wall. She blinked her eyes open until the spots dissappeared and searched the ravine again. The beam of light, heading straight for the stars was easy to spot. And so was the body of her CO. The lower half of him was pinned under what appeared to be a massive log, or perhaps a pole. She couldn't tell what it was made out of, but concidering it's mass, and the rocks piled around where the Colonel's legs should have been visible . . . it wasn't good.

"God . . . "

"If you're praying already, Major then I don't want your help." She noticed for the first time the strain in his voice and made haste getting over to him.

"Are you alright, sir?"

O'Neill gave her the mother of all eye rolls at the question and answered with a heavy layer of sarcasm. "I've been better. How about you help get it off'a me."

"Sir, that's not a good id-"

"How bad are you hurt, Major?"

Sam paused, now kneeling beside the Colonel's upper half, laying a hand against his forehead. She drew the hand back at his question. "M head hurts and I may have bruised a few ribs . . . " She shrugged, sore, tired, worried. To say the least.

"Do you think you can lift it?"

"Well sir, you shouldn't move it. You may have-"

"Can we move it?"

"Sir, you're..."

"I WANT IT GONE CARTER! Look." Grabbing the flashlight from the ground violently, Jack shone it into a gap between the log/pole and the ground to his left.

The beam lit up what appeared to be a rag of some sort and then a blue-ish, gray-ish tint of leather. Or something like it.

"Holy..."

"They're Asgard, Carter. And there dead."

Carter swallowed hard.

"Do we know them?"

"I don't know...but I don't intend to lie here any longer either."

Carter nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving the small patch of exposed skin until she had positioned a splinter of the log under neath the heavy main piece. "Ready whenever you are, sir."


	4. Hide And Seek

"Are you certain, Dr. Jackson?"

"Yes, there is nobody here! The MALP is here and some of Sam's soil samples but . . . no sign of them. I mean even Teal'c is baffled."

Daniel got a questioning look from Teal'c and shook his head. He'd explain that one later. Instead he looked back to the little camera on the MALP.

"It's too dark to see anything beyond a few feet, we'd have to wait until morning to really get somewhere."

"That's almost twenty-two hours away, Doctor."

Daniel nodded, he knew that. He didn't like it either but it was pitch black. Except for the bright lights from the MALP it was like they were at the bottom of the ocean. Absolutely no light, not even starlight was reaching them. They'd be stumbling around in the dark for a long time if they tried to find their missing team members now.

"General, did she say anything about where Jack had gone?" Daniel asked after a moments thought. His concentration divided between the General and Teal'c who was suddenly cocking his head to the side. It was the same move that usually meant 'I have discovered something curiously intriguing.' Daniel knew it well.

"No, doctor she didn't. You say they aren't responding by radio?"

Daniel shrugged.

"The radios could be broken."

"What about transponder codes?"

"Nothing seems to be working, General."

Across the airways, Daniel could hear Hammond sigh and winced. He knew he wasn't being very helpful but he wasn't the military type, and it wasn't like he had some preconceived idea as to how or where to look. He was just as clueless as the rest of the SGC. That was the thing about disappearances.

"Very well, what do you suggest then?" Hammond asked finally.

Daniel was about to answer when Teal'c put a hand up. Turning Daniel frowned, looking first at Teal'c then the surrounding area.

"What?"

Again Teal'c put a hand up, more insistent this time. Daniel listened, squinting pointlessly. He heard nothing at first. Just the trees rustling a bit, night sounds. Then he heard it. A very distant, very distinct whine. They listened to it for several minutes before the General broke the silence.

"What is it, Dr. Jackson?"

"I think we've found something?" He frowned then turned back to the MALP. "We'll . . . call you back."

* * *

"On three. One...two...gah!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sir."

"No, no. It's fine. I'm good. Try it again."

"But sir..."

"Carter..."

She took a deep breath, giving up. He refused to listen to her. She braced her shoulder under the pry and nodded. "Ready."

Jack nodded back. Ok. He could do this. He braced himself, ready to backpedal as soon as his legs were free. "Ok. One...two...three!"

Carter shoved up and out with all her might. Her boots scraping against the shifting rocks, struggling for purchase as the log barely moved. Then it began to rise, as it had before, and she could hear the increase in discomfort from the Colonel. No matter how much he tried to hide it, even if she couldn't see him, she knew.

She heard shuffling, rocks sliding. She pushed harder, her body shaking with the effort. There was quiet for a few seconds. "Colonel?" She called in desperation, her voice quivering with the effort.

More shuffling then the sound of a body collapsing. "I'm free."

With a grunt she let the log back down, sinking to her butt and sitting. Her hands were cramping in the position they had been in around the pry and she spent a moment working some feeling into them. Her arms felt like lead, her whole body aching. Her head most of all. She was so damned cold. The wind hadn't let up. Somehow it was a silent wind, but strong and cold and a damned nuisance.

"God."

The single word came out tortured and strained.

Carter looked up at and forced herself up to her knees creeping forward, feeling her way over to the Colonel. She wished badly now, that her flashlight had not been broken in the fall. The Colonel's was still intact but they were conserving batteries. A smart decision.

"Carter."

"Sir?"

She could hear the heavy breathing and winced in sympathy. She could only imagine how he felt. It was bad enough flying through the air and landing against a wall. How much worse would it have been to have a log land on top of you seconds later.

Crawling up beside him, her hand traveled to his forehead. She panicked slightly when she felt the fever. He was literally burning up.

"I have officially had enough of this."

She swallowed smiling. Re-fixing the blanket she had draped over the Colonel so that it covered the both of them. She didn't plan on staying too long. Only until she had more strength. She was certain if she just sat there she'd get rid of the dizziness creeping up on her.

"Me too, sir."

She wasn't sure why. But suddenly she was laughing. Shaking so hard even though it wasn't from the cold. Shock maybe? She didn't have time to figure much more out.

As soon as it registered in her brain that the Colonel had lost consciousness she found herself doing much the same. Her head coming to rest on Jack's chest with a soft thump.


	5. The Local Vegetation

_The two bodies were not moving. Curious. Greeting them did not seem appropriate. No, according to the mind of the femel it would not be possible. Not right with their customs._

_The mel, a strange one. Much like their own kind yet not quite. His basic grains were not . . . the same. More complex, more delicately designed. They did not create their own food. That had quickly become common knowledge._

_The routes were buzzing now with this knowledge. Their gathering . . . led by the ever intrepid Krellin were learning much. The femel had so much information of strange and glorious things that none of them had been able to know. They all grieved the lack of what they were learning was called 'mobility.' All they had known was this valley. And the gifts that Mount had offered them on occasion. But he too had no . . . mobility. Unlike these mel and femel._

_It wasn't until the mel began to move that they retracted as one. Returning to their stasis of non-movement. They had expended so much energy already there was not much other choice available._

* * *

Jack came to. His eyes closed. As if they wouldn't open whether he tried or not. He didn't care to find out. He was quite comfortable...until he heard noises.

One eye opened and he saw the pitch blackness. He could feel a warm weight on his shoulder, someone breathing beside him. But that hadn't been the noise. No, it was something shuffling. Something moving on rocks, dirt or gravel. He moved the free arm, the one not supporting a warm body, around until his hand hit the shaft of the flashlight and he turned it on. The light was a blinding shock of pain at first but as his eyes adjusted he could see the valley.

The same old, same old valley. Since when had this hell become same old, Jack?

Flicking the flashlight back off, his arm dropped back to the blanket covering him. Which surprised him. He remembered it being cold before. Deathly cold. Now it was. . . nice. The blanket wasn't smothering him so he didn't bother with it. He hoped to hell he wasn't already hypothermic and this was just the last step before lights out for good.

It then occurred to him that he was feeling a definitely human, definitely warm body beside him and he cautiously turned his head. And there she was. Carter, sleeping peacefully as if she hadn't a care in the world. How nice.

Jack sighed and closed his eyes again, letting his head fall back into the position it decided it liked the best. Then he tried moving other body parts. Both arms seemed to want to work, his collar bone felt fine. Head hurt. Legs...yeah legs would be a problem. As if they hadn't ever been in the past, old boy?

The shifting, and the slight groan of pain had made it obvious though. He wasn't going anywhere. It also served to wake Carter. Who never woke quietly he reminded himself, sustaining the kick and smack stoically.

"Morning, Carter." He muttered, then tried to sit up the moment her head left his shoulder. This made him aware of another need. One he had been unconsciously ignoring. Another obstacle, grand.

"Sir?" Carter blinked at the darkness, then looked to where the Colonel should be and found a darker shadow but not much else. She felt around for her own flashlight and frowned.

"My flashlight's gone." She said softly, frowning and sitting up herself. It wasn't until her hand hit something plant-like that she remembered. The planet, the valley, the pain, the Asguard. Oh yeah.

She rubbed a hand over her face and jumped as her hand touched something gooey, and slimy and...not nice at all.

"Oh god!" She gasped wiping what had clung to her hand hurriedly onto her BDU pants, shuddering slightly.

"What?"

"Something...slimy, sir."

Jack finally got into a sitting position he could keep and looked to where Carter's voice was coming from.

"Slimy?" He asked carefully. He didn't want to know. But then he was the Colonel and he had to know. That was his job.

"It smells...like some sort of plant excretion."

"I don't even want to know how you know that."

"Well sir . . ." She tried to explain but he cut her off with his usual unintelligible exclamation.

"Is it adversely affecting you, Major?" Jack asked carefully gently laying his hands over the most painful spots on his legs. He encountered wetness which he assumed to be blood but not alot of it, which was a good sign.

"I don't think so, sir." She said carefully, reaching out her hand to touch his shoulder, then his arm. Trying to orient herself. Assure herself that he was indeed there.

Jack withstood it and otherwise ignored the contact, nice as it was. "All right. There's not much we can do until that sun rises." He decided to state the obvious frustrated that they could do nothing. "You didn't happen to see any wood on your way down?"

Sam shot an incredulous look into the darkness. "No sir. Didn't have much time for that."

"Figures."

Sam snorted softly and shook her head, then sat back. The silence descended over them quickly and she let it. Morning would come eventually.


	6. It's ALIVE

"Has it ever occurred to you, Carter, that not every phenomena needs to have a scientific explanation? Why does everything have to be theoretically thought out and when have you ever stopped 'thinking'?"

Carter, who had just been cut off by Jack's comment, raised a brow and turned to face her CO.

"I was going to suggest a way out sir." She said carefully, keeping any smile or smart-ass look from her face at all costs.

There was a pause in their little prison while Jack sat looking an awful lot like a man who's bluff had just been called.

Finally he muttered, "Oh," and turned back to the small fire he had been attempting to build.

Sam smiled slightly in triumph and looked back to the haggard, haphazard foot and hand holds she had been considering before. She was tall enough to reach the first hand hold and from this perspective the rest looked relatively easy. The marks on the insides of the holes, that she could see, could have been the result of a cutting tool, a knife or chisel. As though someone else had found themselves in this mess and come up with the same solution of climbing out.

High above their heads she could see the pink sky through a three-foot wide crevice that ran the length of the valley. The rest of the horizon was obscured by solid rock that curved outward and downward to form what could be called a hall of some sort. The very hall they were trying to escape.

She could climb it. She was certain of that despite the numerous parts of her body crying out for attention. But what about Jack?

Carter looked over to her CO, his own attention raptly spent on the stubborn leaves, twigs and scraps he was throwing into a pile. He hadn't left that spot, that she knew of, since he had been freed from the weight of the...

She paused in her thoughts, noticing for the first time that the huge log Jack had been under was gone. No trace, as if it had never been there in the first place. She stepped quickly to the spot where she could have sworn that it was. Nothing. No Asguard either.

"Sir..." she started, but by that time Jack had not only caught on to what she had figured out but apparently already had something of an answer.

"It's missing."

"I know, Carter."

"Well, it couldn't have just..."

"I was under the opinion that the little gray dudes paid a visit last night but..."

"Why would we still be here if they had been able to transport the dead out of here." Carter finished for him. The calm morning, around which they had centered their focus purely on patching up and getting communication to the outside was fast changing into a desperate need to get out.

Carter recalled the slimy...the substance she had encountered when she first awoke and made a swipe at her cheek. Whatever it was had dried and fallen off as her cheek was free from anything foreign. She rubbed the hand across the back of her neck closing her eyes.

She did not like this place anymore. She hadn't 'gotten the creeps' since she was three but...this place definitely spooked her. The purple plants, disappearing dead Asguard, the pink sky, the tiny view of a deep purple lake through the only 'window' in the valley. The hole through which Colonel O'Neill must have been throwing the rocks so many hours earlier.

Her mind was wandering she realized and she shook her head. She was tired, that was it. They both had to be. Just concentrate.

Concentrate on finding a way out. On helping the Colonel. The Colonel who was still working on making a fire. A warm fire. A nice warm comforting fire. She smiled. Watching the Colonel who hunched awkwardly over the tiny gathering of materials trying to make a nice, comfortable fire.

She remembered a similar figure, hunched over a fire. The only fire she remembered him making. The only child hood memory even remotely pleasant that she remembered involving him.

The three of them together.

Alone in the wilderness.

The trip, she later came to the conclusion, was merely so he wouldn't feel so guilty about leaving them all the time. Or at least that was how the suggestion had come about.

She could remember her mother, constantly promising that he would come home. He would make it because he had promised! He would come home and take her and her brother on that forever-planned camping trip.

He had promised.

And for once . . . he came through.

He had walked in that door, five minutes after Sam had trudged in from the back for a glass of milk. The little girl, the little blonde-haired, blue- eyed angel had stood still for such a long time. Afraid that if she blinked he would disappear. But when she did finally blink he was still there. Standing in his dress blues, his cap folded neatly in his hand staring right back at his baby girl. She cried his name in sheer happiness and ran into his arms, buried her head in his shoulder and held on for dear life.

Oh how much she loved her Daddy. And how happy she had been in that moment. He was home, he was there, she could see and feel and kiss and hug her Daddy to her heart's content and she took every advantage she could of that. She doubted any other little girl could love and miss her Daddy as much as she did.

And Jacob had held on as well, tears welling in his eyes. He hadn't seen his little girl in nearly seven months. She had grown so much. But she was still just the right size. From the way she was clinging to him she couldn't hate him. She wasn't about to throw insults or hurl names she shouldn't even know at him. Not like her brother. No he still had hope in her.

Then they had gone camping. Fishing, and hunting for food, Sam had had the time of her life. With her Daddy and her brother at her side she could and did face almost anything.

Sam smiled. That had been a wonderful time. She wouldn't trade a thing in the world for that memory. She only wished she could have had more of them. Like most normal children. Why couldn't she have had a Daddy that came home from work everyday instead of every millennium.

She sighed sadly. It was simply not meant to be.

"Carter?"

It was something about the cosmos that simply and purely decided that she was not to be that lucky. She was not to be given a father that would hold a simple job, in a simple office and live a simple home life.

"Major!"

There was just no way in hell that she was going to get all those things she wanted. Not her childhood dreams, oh and certainly not her adult dreams. There was just no way. It was simply not meant to be.

"SAM!"

Blue eyes snapped open, surprised clarity flashing in the irises before they closed again, rolling into the back of her head. The plant material around her ankles and hands and sliming over one half of her face was repulsive. Pulsing, seething and leaving a trail of some sort of green...mucus everywhere it went.

Jack was panicking, and why the hell shouldn't he be. After all the goddamn plants were attacking!

He chopped and sliced as carefully as he could until the Major was free, dragging her back to the plant-less rocky area where he had finally managed to start the fire.

His legs were a mess. Mess enough to make dragging Sam only about ten or fifteen feet take an hour. Almost. He felt like an eighty-year old by the time he was seated, Sam safely tucked into a sleeping bag and close by. He wasn't going to let that happen again.

Nope.


	7. The Inevitable MacGyverism

The plants kept to themselves for most of the day. Jack never saw any of them move again.

And he was happy about that. He was not happy about Carter remaining unconscious.

He had made his fire finally.

Found a way to move about a little more easily and had collected as much fire wood as possible.

He had wrapped up his legs and then left them alone. He wasn't a doctor and didn't care to prove himself either.

Keeping a close eye on the vegetation he had scoped out the wall Carter had been inspecting before. Yes there were handholds, and a way out but he would never make it up.

His next option was the hole in the side of the mountain that he had been sending pebbles through. It was big enough around to slide through, the problem was the drop to the water, and the jagged rocks that were far too close for comfort at the bottom.

Sitting down again, his legs throbbing, he stared through the hole.

Tossing a few stones into the water he considered the problem.

They had plenty of day light.

Their little cave like thing was warming up.

They had food, for a bit. At the thought of food he glanced back to the packs. Then to Carter, making certain she wasn't attracting the plants again.

Water?

He looked to the water below them and it hit him that he might find a way to get down there without dying.

Crawling over to the packs he searched through his until he found the knife, then crawled closer to the flora he had been worried about before.

What better way to get out of this than to kill two birds with one stone?

Slicing the vine like root from the base of one plant he pulled on it.

Avoiding getting plant guts on his hands but yanking the length of it from the ground, uprooting it easily until he hit the resistance of a another base plant.

Fun.

Grinding his teeth together, painfully, he moved to the next base plant and freed it from the vine like root. Then again he was pulling and yanking the root from the ground.

The root he had exposed seemed firm enough to handle just about any kind of tension and the longer it was in the open air the more the fleshy surface of the vine hardened.

All the better.

Almost two hours later he was sitting beside Carter once again.

His legs were bleeding again. What had been broken bones and cuts were now becoming open sores.

But he was happily in possession of almost fifty feet of coiled rope, not much else mattered. With his back against the wall and far beyond exhausted he waited.

For what?

Well . . . for Carter to wake up.

Working alone was never fun.

And he was certain, if nothing weird and alien was wrong with her, that she would be more help to the situation than he was being.

He glanced around the prison once more. At the crude orangish rock, the strange plants that had been all torn up by his latest exercise.

The sun streaming steadily through the crag in the rock.

It was...peaceful.

He could hear the waves sliding up gently against the rocks below him and there were no sounds of birds or other animals.

It was just quiet.

And warm and peaceful.

Like Maui.

He jerked his eyes open. Maui?

Was he dreaming of Maui?

On an alien planet!

With his 2IC unconscious, no help for a billion, gazillion miles and the plants themselves as a predator.

And he was dreaming of Maui.

He jerked his head around and checked on Carter, then the sun.

The light was dimmer.

He looked to his watch and found he had indeed been dreaming, sleeping. For almost two hours. Far too long.

He dropped the rope, which he found to be still in his arms, and turned to Carter. The canteen beside him was open and he poured a tiny amount of water into his palm, patting it against her face.

No more sleeping. They had to move.

Calling her name and checking for any sign of waking up, he kept it up until she started to groan and open her eyes. Much to his relief.

"Colonel?"

"Carter. You've been out for a while."

"I have?"

"Uh . . yah."

Carter blinked, her eyes groggily taking in her surroundings. "It can't have been that long..." she drifted off, her eyes closing.

"CARTER!"

Her eyes flew open again and she gasped a bit. "Sorry, sir."

"Sit up, come on. Move around, shake it out of your system." Jack would have pulled her to her feet at that moment, if he had been capable of using his own.

Thankfully Carter did as she was ordered and stood, albeit drunkenly.

She was immediately holding her head between two pale hands and wondering what she had been drinking.

And for how long.

And most importantly why.

The answers would have to come later as two very familiar voices suddenly filtered down to the them.

Both of them realized who it was, and what may well happen to them if they got any closer.

"Daniel! Teal'c! Get the hell back!"

"Get out of here! Get off the mountain!"


	8. The Other Living Water

Their cries were never heard. Daniel and Teal'c never heard the warning and Carter and Jack never heard the echo.  
  
In a split second all was silent, and dark and empty.  
  
Jack was struggling. Against this unknown, against the thing that was holding him still. Holding even his lungs still. He felt as though he couldn't breath, couldn't possibly have room to draw in breath, yet there was no burn for oxygen in his lungs. He was light headed.  
  
He wasn't in pain!  
  
Automatically he tried to look down to his legs but again, he couldn't see. He knew his eyes were open, was certain they were open but all he saw was black.  
  
In a sense, as he discovered the nothingness around him he expected it to be familiar. Like unconciousness, or some other bizarre happening that he had somehow survived. But while he, no pun intended, recognized the surroundings he didn't recognize the place, the feel, the intensity of . . . whatever it was that held him.  
  
Familiarity would describe Daniel's perception as well. He was reminded vaguely of the living water he had encountered through the Russia 'Gate.  
  
It had held them in this way, allowing him to breath but then keeping his limbs stationary. Seeming to steal the breath from his lungs, yet he felt no desperate need for air.  
  
He didn't struggle, merely closed his eyes.  
  
Carter was the same way, her eyes had been closed already. The dizzying pain, headache, the sore muscles, the bruises . . . all of it had dissappeared in a wave. A literal wave, as though the ocean had washed over her, and engulfed her completely and totally.  
  
She let it engulf her, feeling a barely detectable sway, then a steadily growing, rocking sensation.  
  
The Jaffa felt the same motion and found it most unsettling. He knew it as 'sea sickness' according to the Tau'ri and had encountered it on his first boat trip through the gate. He didn't like it then, and did not like it now.  
  
Back in Jack's mind, the rocking could have stopped an hour ago. A century ago.  
  
At first it had been comforting.  
  
Calming, peaceful.  
  
It made most of his doubts about the unfamiliarity of it all or the fact that he could very well be dying, go away.  
  
But now . . . he wanted out, off the boat, out of the box, off the wagon. Whatever the hell you called it.  
  
Daniel too suddenly felt unwell. It . . . this place was no longer somewhere he wanted to be. But though he was unsettled his attention was stalled by the appearance of a light.  
  
Not so much a bulb, or a brilliant revelation but a tiny change in the atmosphere, bumping against his eyelids enough that he again opened his eyes. And he noticed a difference.  
  
Carter saw it too and as she watched it grow, from a tiny glow that spread out across her vision to a ball of increasing intensity, it was as if the light that had exploded and expanded was now re-gathering itself.  
  
Then expanding and exploding again, brighter now.  
  
Teal'c as well watched the light gather together for a fourth and fifth time, each time exploding and spreading out brighter and bolder than before.  
  
Then he broke the surface. He was aware that his head was wet, his limbs awake and moving to keep himself afloat, his lungs suddenly convulsing, in order to work properly. Had he been breathing underwater? Was he in water?  
  
He struggled to open his eyes, coughing and gagging and flailing until he found air, and balance.  
  
He saw the surface of the water, recognizing it as the lake on the planet. The one he and DanielJackson had seen before.  
  
There was water in his ears, some in his lungs. He coughed, tried to expel the liquid.  
  
But he heard a voice. No not a voice. A suggestion of a voice, of a sound that seemed to speak in his own language, or more . . . . the language of the Gods.  
  
You have trespassed on this planet.  
  
The Colonel, breaking the surface seconds later also heard the voice, speaking in English, very clipped, almost British sounding.  
  
He blinked then started gagging.  
  
The pain he thought had left him revisited him in a most unsavory way and suddenly the voice was the least of his concerns.  
  
The blonde major recognized it. Female, quiet.  
  
You have trespassed on this planet.  
  
She coughed and blinked.  
  
Gagged and managed to look around before the pain hit her, driving her eyes shut and the breath from her body for a few seconds.  
  
Then she started paddling. The survival instinct kicked in and she was soon unaware of anything but the pain and then need to get to shore.  
  
Daniel's feet hit the sandy bottom seconds after he had broken through the surface, ten feet from the shoreline. He stood slowly. His legs were shaking so badly he was amazed he could rise at all.  
  
His body felt heavy even with half of it supported by the water. His body was soaking wet, cold seeping into his bones, and he was coughing still.  
  
He stumbled onto the beach then turned and plopped down on the sand, his shoulders slumping. He fell back onto his back and lay still for some time, feeling and hearing the others approach, and do the same as he had.  
  
Or at least Teal'c did. Carter and Jack came together, or so it sounded, groaning and grunting and making all sorts of noise. But none of them spoke.  
  
There was silence around them. The voices they each heard had been silenced for a time. Daniel was gathering his strength, struggling to stay awake. He had opened his eyes long ago and discovered his glasses were missing.  
  
The most stoic of the group was also gathering his reserves, his symbiote healing damaged lung tissue.  
  
The leader, the commander was having his own private thoughts. Most of them hate filled and aimed towards this planet, and the water that had seemed to come alive. And swallow them whole.  
  
What was worse was that they apparently weren't appetizing and had been spit out and told in essence to get the heck out.  
  
"Thanks a lot." He finally croaked, weak coughs leaving him drained phsyically. His mind wasn't tired in the least though.  
  
The Major blinked at the first sound from any of them and glanced to her superior. Her head was the only thing that moved and it took enough energy to accomplish that.  
  
The Colonel caught the movement in the corner of his eye and faced the questioning look on his 2IC's face. He raised a brow as if to ask what the problem was.  
  
Carter rolled her eyes, closing them in the same movement.  
  
Soon the only sound was the water they had just escaped from, or been saved by, or something.  
  
"So . . ." Daniel started out . . . paused for a long time . . .  
  
"So what just happened?"  
  
The group was silent.  
  
The waves lapped on the beach, the wind moved in the trees. Some strange animal cried out in the distance.  
  
"Good question." 


	9. Drawing Forgone Conclusions

Daniel stood up after a tiny bit. He wavered on his feet only a few seconds, his hands on his chest, then arms. Finding his weapons gone, everything in his pockets gone. His glasses still gone.

"I think we should go." He suggested carefully, looking to Teal'c.

The Jaffa had been staring at the sky and only turned his head a minuscule amount to observe the archaeologist. Then he too stood, walking carefully to the Colonel and bending to offer him a hand in rising.

Jack accepted said hand, groaning inwardly as he was pulled vertical. He could barely put any weight on his legs, let alone appear that he could, but he was the stoic type. Sometimes.

"Good idea, Daniel." He affirmed, leaning against Teal'c until the world stopped spinning so madly. Then he turned his torso towards the gate, the tip of which could be seen just over the trees. Stupid trees. "Carter . . ."

Sam, who was picking herself up, re-orienting herself, nodded slightly. "Yes sir." Daniel moved to her side to offer support and they went off together, Teal'c and the Colonel taking the slower, easier route.

"I am most confused, O'Neill."

"Yah, so am I."

"It is not a concern that we have not completed our original mission?"

Jack looked up at the big guy holding him up basically and sighed, stopping the forward momentum they had managed to achieve for a few seconds. "Carter got her samples, I determined the planet hostile, end of story."

Teal'c was silent for a moment then finally nodded his head in understanding.

"Very wise, O'Neill."

"Thank you, T."

Ahead of them the stargate ka-wooshed, ringing through the woods and the Colonel let out a sigh of relief. He didn't know what had happened.

They had found a planet of sentient beings, plants and mountains and rocks and water that was living. It was a twist on what he knew as reality that he simply did not care to revisit. But he at least knew a few more things about his own planet that he loved.

Plants didn't attack on earth.

Water didn't speak on earth.

Mountains didn't swallow people whole on earth.

That put a few things straighter in his mind.


End file.
